It’s (Still) About Time: Calendar Systems in the Lower Pecos

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Following the talk by Kim Cox, this talk will further detail the importance of the calendar systems preserved in the rock art and its solar interactions at Paint Rock in the Lower Pecos, Texas. By creating rock art panels that intersect with the natural landscape and continue to mark events in time with solar motion, the artists effectively instilled life into their creations, making pieces that moved with time -- and thus were, in essence, alive. The function of this rock art as a calendar system is made even clearer by the inclusion of 18th-century art that incorporates Spanish missionary elements that are themselves tied to specific points on the Gregorian calendar. By incorporating both indigenous and colonial markers of time on the same panels, the artists blended elements of different religious traditions into their work, further emphasizing the sacred nature of timekeeping and its function in the rock art.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53594